Last week was a big win for me. I am a winner! It started out with a book scout calling me to ask if I still owned the rights to my book, We Won’t Forget You, Mr. McGillicuddy. When I told him that I did, he proceeded to tell me Powell’s Book store was interested in buying copies of my book and I would be contacted by the marketing manager in the next day or so. I spent the next three days talking with the marketing manager and a publicist Powell’s had assigned to me to promote my book. They wanted to buy 8,000 copies!
Was I stoked!
The next big win came when I got a call from Publisher’s Clearing house indicating I won second place in their sweepstakes. That was on Friday. The prize amounted to $3.5 million and a new Mercedes Benz. Not bad for second place. I couldn’t help but conjure up fantasies of sitting next to a pool on a cruise ship with a fancy drink in one hand and a cracker with caviar in the other. When I got off the ship, it was going to be nice to drive a Mercedes home to my mansion on the coast. For years, I had implored the Lord- “Oh Lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz?” Or just a night on the town. Now the Lord finally had heard my prayers.
And my book! It seemed it had finally gotten some traction, and it was on its way to being a bestseller. Yay! The world was such a wonderful place. Forget about the wars and genocides, the greedy million and billionaires (I was soon to be one) soaking the poor and middle class for all they’ve got. Forget that we have the worst pick of politicians running for office this year in the history of this nation and that half of my friends are in economic distress-I was soon going to be rich and famous.
Hold your horses! The beasts want to run, but it’s time to take stock of the situation before proceeding. First of all, I didn’t complete an entry to the PCH sweepstakes. Gave that up long ago. I told the supposed representative so and he said they had drawn my name from 80,000 cell phone numbers in Oregon. Yep. I believe! Then he asked me to look over this document he had sent to my email. The document had a list of fees, all paid for by PCH. Except, wait! Down at the bottom of the list was one fee to be paid by the recipient of the prize. It was a $500 registration fee imposed by the state of Oregon. Suddenly, the luxury liner my mind had already climbed aboard for a long relaxing trip sank. Then the Mercedes I was supposed to drive burst into flames as I went from disappointment to anger. How dare this fraudster waste my time?
Well, at least my book was taking off. But I soon found reasons to be skeptical of that as well. After close observation, I found the email they had used to communicate with me was not listed on Powell’s site and neither was the phone number. They also wanted money as well. The publicist was ready to give my website and book a boost, but that would cost $3,000 for a promotion package guaranteed to get me to the top. I figure a grand apiece would go to each of the three impersonators who tried to make me believe they were Powell’s employees.
There are some lessons to be learned here. One, if it sounds too good to be true, it isn’t. Two, if it costs money to win, you didn’t win. Three, be diligent and realize that phone numbers and email addresses can be spoofed, people will impersonate other people, and a scammer will go to great lengths to get your money. Some of you might have read my previous Rant entitled, “It’s a Scam Sam.” I highly recommend that you go back and read it if you haven’t and re-read it if you have. That episode focuses on large, public entities such as governments and corporations who are always on the scam for your money.
By the way, anyone trying to publish writing should read my article, so share with a friend. Also, I would recommend going to Writers Beware which has several pages of resources for aspiring writers. In conclusion, I would like to say that though these scammers were slippery as snot on an oil slick, I didn’t fall for any of their nonsense. That makes me a winner. I won!